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Soul of a Man, The
Keith Brown as Skip James
In The Soul of A Man, Wim Wenders looks at the dramatic tension in the blues between the sacred and the profane by exploring the music and lives of three of his favorite blues artists: Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir. Part history, part personal pilgrimage, the film tells the story of these lives in music through an extended fictional film sequence, rare archival footage, present-day documentary scenes and covers of their songs by contemporary musicians such as Shemekia Copeland, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Garland Jeffreys, Chris Thomas King, Cassandra Wilson, Nick Cave, Los Lobos, Eagle Eye Cherry, Vernon Reid, James “Blood” Ulmer, Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Marc Ribot, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Lucinda Williams and T-Bone Burnett.
“These songs meant the world to me. I felt there was more truth in them than in any book I had read about America, or in any movie I had ever seen. I’ve tried to describe, more like a poem than in a ‘documentary,’ what moved me so much in their songs and voices.” Wim Wenders
“These songs meant the world to me. I felt there was more truth in them than in any book I had read about America, or in any movie I had ever seen. I’ve tried to describe, more like a poem than in a ‘documentary,’ what moved me so much in their songs and voices.” Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders was born in Düsseldorf in 1945. He abandoned studies in Medicine and Philosophy to become a painter, but in Paris he discovered cinema instead. He attended film school in Munich from 1967-1970, and then started to direct and produce his own films. He has received numerous international awards, including the Golden Lion (1982), the Golden Palm (1984), the European Film Award (1988), and a Silver Bear (2000). He is a professor at the Hamburg Academy of Arts, and lives partly in America, partly in Berlin. A selection of his acclaimed films includes: THE GOALKEEPER'S FEAR OF THE PENALTY (1971), ALICE IN THE CITIES (1973), IN THE COURSE OF TIME (1976), THE AMERICAN FRIEND (1977), HAMMETT (1982), THE STATE OF THINGS (1982), PARIS, TEXAS (1984), WINGS OF DESIRE (1987), UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (1991), FARAWAY, SO CLOSE! (1993), LISBON STORY (1994), THE END OF VIOLENCE (1997), BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (1998), THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL (2000), THE SOUL OF A MAN (2003), LAND OF PLENTY (2004), DON'T COME KNOCKING (2005), PALERMO SHOOTING (2008), and PINA (2011), among others.
Genre Education, Music, Biopic
Category Docu-Fiction
Year of Production 2003
Director Wim Wenders
Screenplay Wim Wenders
Director of Photography Lisa Rinzler
Editor Mathilde Bonnefoy
Cast Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, Keith B. Brown
Producers Ulrich Felsberg, Alex Gibney, Margaret Bodde, Jody Patton, Martin Scorsese
Production Companies Vulcan Productions, Seattle, Road Movies Filmproduktion/Berlin
Length 100 min
Original Version English
Festivals Cannes 2003 (Special Sessions), Goteborg 2004, Singapore 2004
World Sales
Reverse Angle Pictures GmbH
Neue Schoenhauser Strasse 20
10178 Berlin/Germany
phone +49-30-8 80 48 60
fax +49-30-88 04 86 11
info@reverse-angle.com
http://www.reverse-angle.com
Category Docu-Fiction
Year of Production 2003
Director Wim Wenders
Screenplay Wim Wenders
Director of Photography Lisa Rinzler
Editor Mathilde Bonnefoy
Cast Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, Keith B. Brown
Producers Ulrich Felsberg, Alex Gibney, Margaret Bodde, Jody Patton, Martin Scorsese
Production Companies Vulcan Productions, Seattle, Road Movies Filmproduktion/Berlin
Length 100 min
Original Version English
Festivals Cannes 2003 (Special Sessions), Goteborg 2004, Singapore 2004
World Sales
Reverse Angle Pictures GmbH
Neue Schoenhauser Strasse 20
10178 Berlin/Germany
phone +49-30-8 80 48 60
fax +49-30-88 04 86 11
info@reverse-angle.com
http://www.reverse-angle.com
